jeudi 22 octobre 2015

Two PhD scholarships available for international and Australian domestic applicants in honey bee behaviour and welfare



The PhD scholarships are offered by Macquarie University, Sydney, and cover all tuition fees and a living stipend. 

1. Examining mechanisms of cognition and goal-directed behaviour in honey bees

This project in cognitive neuroethology will examine how honey bees learn and process complex stimuli and choose and enact the most appropriate behavioural response. It will focus on visual learning, stimulus classification, resolution of uncertainty, goal-directed behaviour or operant learning and involve a combination of behavioural analyses, neural imaging and neuropharmacology. It will suit applicants with training in neurobiology. The project is aligned with a Future Fellowship Grant awarded to Andrew Barron to model functions of the bee brain. The new experimental data generated in this project will be used to synergistically test and improve models of brain function.


2. Improving honey bee health

The project will study the process of colony decline and failure in order to identify colonies at risk of collapse early and the best interventions to rescue colonies.  It will involve longitudinal detailed monitoring of colony growth and performance using new sensor technologies, and examination of impacts of pesticide and pathogen stressors on bees and colonies. The project is a collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture, and universities in the USA. 

For more information on the research activities of the lab visit:

Scholarship details are given here:


To register an expression of interest contact Andrew Barron